


Speculations

by kikibug13



Category: Valor Series - Tanya Huff
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-22
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-09-11 02:55:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8951107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kikibug13/pseuds/kikibug13
Summary: On the good nights, Alamber sometimes wonders what kind of di'Taykan Boss will get him.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alessandriana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alessandriana/gifts).



On the better night-cycles, few as those were, Alamber wondered about the di'Taykan that his Boss would find. 

Because he did not doubt it - Torin Kerr would find somebody for him to feel more comfortable with. Not that there was anything whatsoever wrong with their team, especially Binti - he even liked the way she looked at him sometimes, not like an object, let alone _her_ object, but as though assessing him (respect without strings attached was ever so scarce, and he had found more with these four people than in his entire life before them) and maybe, just maybe, thinking of ways to help. His reflexes, to make people do what he wanted them to do, ran too deep for him to just let it go, of course. Most days. But Binti usually - unless it went counter to what she was doing, or was meant to be doing - complied with his intent anyway, to the point where Alamber wondered if he'd managed to make her do whatever it was, or if she had chosen for herself. 

It should make him angry, that maybe one set of his tools simply did not work as he expected it to - or at least that he was unsure about it. But it did not, and it took him a lot of half-questions to the Boss and maybe a few overheard conversations before he could put what she had done into proper perspective. What she had been doing. 

She was taking away from him the sharp, double-bladed dagger of self-accusation regarding whether she was here with him, for him, or only around because he made her. A lot of days, that was not a question he asked himself. Others, it was far too easy to feel the jab, endless, sharp jab of such questions; her peaceful (if, he knew, light) slumber did not alleviate that on the worst nights. 

Binti Mashona was Binti Mashona and she cared. Then again, everyone on this team cared, and that was extremely confusing still. On the other hand, try as he might, he could not catch them at lying to him about it, or seeing him as the means to an end. Disorienting. But, now that enough time - and work - had passed, it was refreshing. Even if it made him realize some of his own habits were rather bad to them and they made sure to let him know. 

Refreshing. Unpleasant to think about himself. 

When had anyone cared if something was unpleasant to him? (That was a lie. Boss cared. The rest of the team cared. But they also did not avoid unpleasantness when they thought it necessary, for themselves or each other.)

So he shifted away from these considerations, instead contemplating... the future. Possible futures. Because his current Boss never went back on her word and, while she hadn't _promised_ there would be another di'Taykan because of him, she made it clear that she was not going to drop him or leave him behind, and that she was fully aware of the needs of his species. Which led to one conclusion, and, see, Alamber was not impatient. He knew that the lot of them worked together in unique ways, so just recruiting somebody else would not work. But he was also impatient, because even Nadayki's fukking presence had helped, and that was not a good thing. (Had they all rubbed off on him when it came to seeing how touch-starved the asshole had been? He put that away from his mind, too.)

Over and over again.

So he turned his thoughts to wondering what kind of role the other di'Taykan would take. Because there were parameters he could toy with, and if he reached a decision, he could try to get Boss to get him the kind of toy he wanted. She might even agree. Unlikely, because the woman had an incredible streak of stubbornness to her, but perhaps. 

It was pretty clear to Alamber that she was unlikely to get another coder. Two out of five was already a pretty high ratio, and he and Ressk had found a relationship that worked, between competition and collaboration. Honestly, while he had grown to appreciate the presence of people almost as intelligent as himself around him, he did not want more competition. Even if-- 

No.

Probably not another hacker. 

Alamber thought back to the jobs they'd done. Now that they were going to be proper Wardens, weapons were likely to get in play more. Which meant that maybe they would get another shooter, like Binti. Not that anyone could be _like her_ , but the same skill set. And di'Taykan could shoot very precisely, if need be, considering better sight - and hearing, and smell - than humans. On the other hand, they did have Binti, and Binti Mashona did not miss. And she was... 

It was a weird thought for Alamber, and doubly so for a _di_ 'Taykan, but he did not really think she should be replaced. 

What else did they need? Of course, Werst kept on after Boss's case because she often did not have much back-up with hand-to-hand experience. Which was a very good point, and a di'Taykan - well. Actually Alamber wasn't too sure that a di'Taykan would make a good enough hand-to-hand fighter for Werst to accept him. Or her, but probably him. 

Hmm. Maybe not a hand-to-hand. 

Alamber would always get to that point in his analysis and try to figure out what _other_ people might get added to the team, but...

Ex-Marines were a complicated lot, in the ways they fit together. And he could not come up with an option that would work.

What he had never in any possible world expected, nor would have expected? Was that Torin Kerr found him, somehow, a _shy_ di'Taykan. 

Of course, it would be rather imprecise to say that Torin had found her. di'Heina Liania was in fact a medic who was assigned to work with Werst on his recovery from the H'San infection, not that many knew that was what it had been. She was careful, gentle, professional, and her smaller body fit with his in ways that made him breathe more easily. Which should not have been possible, but there was. Peace? Peace, he thought with wonder, about her which touched him even when she was doing nothing in particular. 

(When she _was_ doing things, that was as soft and intense as the rest of her.)

But the thing was, when she started working with Werst, none of them even suspected that Liania might stay with them. Or, honestly, even get off station with them, too.

Then she was in the middle of a procedure with Werst when they got the urgent distress call, and all hands on deck were in Susumi space as soon as the math could be crunched, and Liania was with them for the simple necessity of her presence in the treatment that she was conducting. She was not going to fight, that was certain, but there was enough financial backup for her being with them, and they had air and water and food, and Alamber was fine with that for the moment. 

Liania was pretty young. She had joined the Wardens right before the war was over, with her brilliance in medicine making up for her oft-claimed (by herself) timidity. She was not supposed to be anywhere close to the action, but when they got out of Susumi space, they found what was basically a biological weapon kind of situation. 

They survived. They might have survived without her. But millions of hapless, guiltless - in this matter - people of at least seven (that they knew of) species would have died if Liania had not been with them, and acted with incredible calm and brilliance under pressure. 

Which, if anyone was honest - and Alamber even sometimes was, in his own head - was one thing they all had in common. They were brilliant in what each of them did - maybe not the utter top of their fields, other than Boss, but pretty fukking close - and could perform next to miracles under pressure. 

The were all sitting in the command room of Ryder's ship, and there was no need for an extra chair with the two of them usually tangled up in some way or another, when Boss opened up the subject of her staying with them.

She paused a little, her eyes going very very light. Then she turned in his lap and whispered a few words to Alamber, which would have made him spittake if he had been drinking something at the time. 

He told her yes. And she told Boss yes. 

Maybe this was going to work out. But she was still terribly shy. For a medically qualified person to ask...

( _May I treat your hair, then?_ )


End file.
